Parker may take title fight to Fury territory
Joseph Parker’s promoters want their man to fight Hughie Fury in New Zealand but say their successful purse bid for the WBO title fight is no guarantee the Kiwi heavyweight’s first defence will be on home soil.
Duco Events won the rights to the bout between Parker and mandatory challenger Fury with a bid of a little more than US$3 million (NZ$4.1 million) at World Boxing Organisation headquarters in Puerto Rico yesterday.
The bid was $200,000 more than the number pitched by the promoter of Fury, Frank Warren, and the 60-40 purse split in Parker’s favour guaranteed him a pay-day of around $2.4 million regardless of the result.
WBO president Paco Valcarel had posted on social media that the fight would be in Auckland on April 1.
Duco director David Higgins confirmed early April was their preferred time against the 20-0 Englishman but indicated the location remained less certain.
‘‘The reason we wanted to win was so we would have choice of where, when and what to suit Team Parker but that doesn’t mean [the fight will be in New Zealand],’’ he said, adding the situation would be clearer in around two weeks time.
Taking the fight to Samoa, who provided funding for Parker’s titlesecuring win against Andy Ruiz Jr in December, was not off the table, while Higgins said Singapore had also expressed interest.
The likely location, though, if not New Zealand would be Fury’s home-town of Manchester.
Parker is yet to fight in the United Kingdom, where the boxing market is booming, and holding the bout there would give the Kiwi valuable exposure ahead of the fight between Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko on April 29 for the IBF and WBA heavyweight straps.
‘‘If Joseph beats or knocks out Fury his stocks in the UK will go through the roof and then several mega-events are in the pipeline, including potentially a unification with the winner of Joshua vs Klitschko.
‘‘You could also look at [former champion] Tyson Fury avenging his cousin’s loss and taking his title back, you could unify with [WBC champion] Deontay Wilder and there is David Haye.’’